Travel Journal: Days 1 & 2 - Through Dubai and on to Addis Ababa

Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, "Give them up!" and to the south, "Do not hold them back." Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth - everyone who is called by my name; whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. -Isaiah 43:5-7

To say the several days leading up to our departure were stressful would be an understatement. On Monday, a week & two days before we were to leave, I received our travel notification from Holt, after thinking that we'd been ruled out for travel in the month of May. That week, everything difficult about travel that could possibly arise seemed to. We had a difficult time booking our tickets, we learned that Abraham was not in the care center after all, but in the hospital.  Samuel was finishing up school and Adam was just about to leave town for a work conference, which meant that I was packing us up and parenting solo for those days leading up to our departure.

Even though it was a stressful week, looking back, God's hand was in the timing. Adam got back in town just hours before our plane left Austin.  He got to miss work during a time when things were slower in the office, which was a blessing, and both Elijah and Samuel were finished with school and homeschool responsibilities.  My sister-in-law, who did a huge portion of watching our kids at home, had a free schedule and was able to devote all of her energy to our kids.  On a whim, we had already "nested" at home the previous weekend by setting up Abraham's crib and preparing letters and surprises each day for the kids at home.

So, Wednesday, we spent a long morning with our kids, then Nicole took us to the Austin airport.  I cried as we left, because Matea was crying and I knew that she knew enough to know that something was up but not enough to understand that we would come back.

In Houston, we met up with my dad and boarded our flight to Dubai.  That flight was 15 hours.  We slept a little here and there, and really enjoyed Emirates' incredible selection of TV, movies, music and video games (Samuel, especially).  Dad had probably the most miserable flight of his life, stuck in the middle seat between a woman with an infant and a woman with a bladder problem.  By the end of the flight he had all kinds of bodily fluids on him, and none his own.

We arrived in Dubai at around 7 pm Thursday evening.  We were not too tired, so we decided to hit the town.  We spent about $30 US on 4 Dubai Starbucks drinks, hired a taxi to drive us around, saw the tallest building in the world, and then stopped at one of Dubai's renowned shopping malls for some incredible Persian food and music.  It was an experience. 

Dubai was full of glitz and glam.  It was similar to being in Las Vegas, but with a Middle Eastern feel.  All in all, an incredible city.

We crashed into bed late that night and woke around 5 am for our flight to Addis.  Our airport hotel was complimentary with our airline tickets, and it was a rather nice place.  Nicer than what we would pay lots more money to stay at in Addis. :)  We liked going through Dubai - it was a nice way to break up the travel.

So, we'd left Austin Wednesday afternoon.  We arrived in Addis Ababa around noon and went straight to the Holt offices for our orientation and schedule.  From there, our driver took us to our hotel, which was right next door to the care center.  We had to wait until after naptime, at 3 pm, to see Abraham, so we took our time settling into our room.  We had a large bedroom with a bathroom and another small bedroom for Samuel off of it.

Culture shock began to set in here.  We learned what that small, bare, plastic basket beside the toilet was for. 

At this point we'd briefly driven through Addis but hadn't really been outside yet.  More culture shock was to come, and it would be much more disturbing than the fact that we had to store our used toilet paper outside the toilet until cleaning time.

I will end here, and start back up when we first met Abraham that afternoon.  This song was running through my head this entire time, as well as the couple of weeks leading up to our departure, so it is only appropriate to include here....